


AKA White Noise

by Cloudnine101



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, First Kiss, First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Minor Character Death, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5285177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloudnine101/pseuds/Cloudnine101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It happens one evening: Trish turns her head, and there's a beautiful woman on her balcony, her lips purpling from the chill.</em> </p><p> </p><p>Trish falls in love in ten stages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	AKA White Noise

_10._

 

Jessica is ten years old. She can lift her father. Trish watches her do it, through the downstairs window of Jess's pretty little house. Their mothers are chatting on the front porch, unaware. Jessica's grinning. She's got black braids; they're falling apart. The day's a sunny one.

"Patricia," her mother calls. "Patricia...where are you, sweetheart? It's time to go."

Trish sucks in her bottom lip, and allows herself to be pulled away. As she turns around, she spies Jessica waving, lips wide and framed by freckles and chocolate ice cream.

Trish raises her hand. She giggles. Jessica pulls a funny face. 

 

_9._

 

Jessica Jones is fifteen. She's growing into herself nicely; Trish is still shapeless and skinny as a rake, no matter what dress she picks. Jessica looks pale and thin, but in a good way. She wears too much dark mascara. Whenever Trish tries it on, she looks like an idiot.

Jess is kind to her. She demonstrates the best brush techniques, and shows Trish how to make her hair wild. Naturally, Trish's mother "rues the day those two girls met". Jess's mother doesn't seem to agree.

Trish holds Jessica's hand, in the quiet of their room. It's just Jess's room, technically, but it's never felt that way. They sit cross-legged in amongst the bedclothes. Jessica bends Trish's homework binders out of shape. Trish turns cartwheels in the background. Her skirt lumps up around her waist. She's just got onto the gymnastics team. She's ecstatic.

Jessica nibbles on her lip, grinning. "Damn it, Trish," she says. "You made me spill my polish!"

Trish wipes it up with the back of her sleeve - or, at least, she tries to. They end up staining both of their shirts purple. Trish's mother _freaks_. 

 

_8._

 

Jessica's parents die. They were in an accident. Jessica was in the car. They hit a lorry - slammed straight into the back without stopping. Jessica's father didn't hit the brake fast enough.

Jessica's little brother dies, too. He was eight years old.

Trish holds Jessica as she sobs, and thinks, this is simply the mess we will have to fix. In the best stories, there is always Adversity. If Jess had completed her English assignments, she would have known about that. This is the element of Tragedy that makes the main character more Compelling.

And then Trish thinks about Jess's brother's sweet smile, and the smell of cookies that always seemed to drift from her father, and the way her mother laughed so softly - and suddenly, she's crying, too.

They stay in the hospital until the orderlies lead them away. Then they sit outside on the steps. It's hot. It feels as though it shouldn't be - there ought to be rain and clouds and thunderstorms. That way, when Trish took Jessica in her arms, she could say it was because of the cold.

Today, she has no excuses.

 

_7._

 

They make a blanket-fort in Trish's room. They're too old for it now, of course. Trish does it anyway. She leads the way upstairs, and sets out the best blankets and cushions. Jessica peers around as though she's never seen any of it before.

"You first," Trish informs her. Jess stares at the places where they're touching - at their hands, their waists, their hips.

"Okay," Jess says. "If you're sure. 'Cause you - you've gotta be sure."

"I am," Trish says. "Definitely. Sure as sure can be."

They kiss between the sheets. Jess doesn't speak. She leans her head against Trish's shoulder, and snuffles gently while she sleeps. After a while, Trish drifts off. When she wakes, Jessica Jones is gone. The lock to Trish's door has been snapped clean off.

 

_6._

 

Jessica grows up hard and strong. She starts to wear looser clothes. It's to hide how little she's been acting. In the meantime, Trish spoons ice-cream into her best friend's pliant mouth. Downstairs, she can hear her mother typing.

"Don't worry about it," Jessica says. "I wouldn't."

"I have to," Trish replies.

When Jessica's lipstick stains her cheek, Trish's mother begins to ask questions. The questions lead to arguments. The arguments lead to slamming doors and tight silences.

The silences leading to boarding school in a city far away.

Trish screams. Trish hollers. Trish begs - says that she'll never speak to Jessica again, if only she can see her. (She would talk to her, of course. She's selfish like that.)

On the day Trish leaves, Jessica comes to the roadside. She's wearing a hoody and holding a battered cardboard sign. It's raining; Jessica's head is down, and her headphones are on. Trish bangs against the window. The car goes by. Jessica doesn't look up.

 

_5._

 

The next time Trish sees Jessica, she's on the arm of a guy Trish doesn't know. Trish has come home from university. The man's wearing a purple suit. He's got a charming smile. Trish is on the corner of the street buying a newspaper, and suddenly there they are, climbing into a cab.

Jessica's wearing a white dress and sunglasses. There's a big white ring on her pinkie finger. She's smiling, slightly - but it's not the gap-toothed smirk Trish remembers. The man leans closer, and whispers something into her ear. Jessica's face seizes up. She shakes her head, once.

The door to the cab closes, and they speed off down the road. Trish gapes after them, clutching the morning's paper to her chest.

"Jess," she yells, ineffectually.

 

_4._

 

Jessica arrives on Trish's doorstep in the middle of the night - or something like it. She's wearing a coat with fur on the collar, and looks a million dollars. 

"I killed her," Jess keeps saying. "I killed her, I killed her, I killed her. I think I might have killed her."

Trish leads her inside. She wipes down her hands, and turns on the radio - not the channel she runs, now, but a different one: something soothing and pleasant.

After a while, Jess is quiet. She goes to sleep on the sofa, still wrapped up in the trenchcoat. Trish brushes the hair back from her forehead, and takes a moment to remember the little girl with the butterfly headband.

"Quit staring at me," Jessica snaps.

"If I could," Trish mutters, "I would." And she leaves it at that.

 

_3._

 

The man Jessica walked with, that day in the city, was named Kilgrave. He was hit by a lorry. He was a mutant - just like Jessica, just like half the kids in Trish's class at school.

His power was mind control.

This man - Killgrave - made Jessica Jones _kill somebody_ with little more than a _word_.

Trish hates him with everything she has, and then some - but they will work it out. It's just another Tragedy for them to face - and this time, Trish will be there. She knows it. Watching Jess smile again, she knows it. Seeing the look in Jess's eyes, she knows.

 

_2._

 

Trish comes back from work to find a note folded up on the counter. It's sitting beside a half-empty bottle of whiskey. It reads: Sorry. Don't try to find me.

Trish walks the streets for hours. She searches every bar, every nightclub, and every restaurant she comes across. By the end, her feet are blistering. She's taken off her heels, and is plodding along barefoot.

She doesn't find anything. There is no one. Nobody is aware. Nobody can help her. Trish returns home to a cold apartment - so much emptier than before.

 

_1._

 

Jessica's absence lasts for far, far too long. During that time, Trish grows up. She styles her hair differently, smiles at everybody she passes, and regularly forgets to call her mother.

Every time she rounds a curve, she looks for Jessica there - slouching on the curb, hands in her pockets, waiting for Trish to come home.

It happens one evening: Trish turns her head, and there's a beautiful woman on her balcony, her lips purpling from the chill.

"He's back," Jessica says, standing outside her window, and Trish knows - just knows - who she means. And she thinks, _we will face this. This. This time. We will._

Trish takes Jessica inside. She locks the door behind them both. 


End file.
